There are various occupations where dedicated workstations are needed for carrying out certain work tasks, such as monitoring and communications tasks, which often require constant manpower to operate the workstation. In one particular environment, workstations have been widely used on naval and military ships for performing such tasks. Under ideal circumstances, the number of persons needed to operate such workstations would be kept at a minimum, for example to increase efficiency of the workforce aboard a ship. A solution is to dedicate less people to a particular workstation and have those people operate it for longer periods of time. Unfortunately, such a solution is not practicable with many current workstations, as operators would be required to maintain vigilance while sitting upright in a chair for many hours at a time. Realities remain that operators eventually will fatigue and lose vigilance when operating a workstation over time while in the same position.
Current situations provide workstations that simply include a typical chair dedicated to various operator equipment, where an operator generally remains upright unless the operator actively adjusts his/her position. Other than providing more cushion and/or various manual settings, these workstations are not ideal for increasing operating productivity of any one operator at the workstation.
Further improvements can be made to gain workforce efficiency by increasing productivity of a workstation operator, so as to allow for less people of a workforce to be assigned to a workstation.